A New Way to Remember
Living with short time memory loss sucks. What people think of as short term memory problems is often misunderstood. Allot of times I get a response like "oh my memory is bad to", when I explain to people I won't remember things done today. Memory loss is so much than knowing where you put your keys or someones name.
Memory loss means forgetting your wife, you husband, you children, your friends, where you are, what you are doing, where you need to go, and how to get back. I know longer have a memory to rely on on my daily tasks.
To put this in perspective. I know I am married. I know I got married in Hawaii. I know I had a honey mood because that just makes sense. I also have an understanding of Hawaii. If you have never been you to understand what it would be like to be on a beach in Hawaii. That is a part of memory. That I have. What I do not have is access to the details.
I don't remember who was there. I can assume, like most weddings, my family, my brides family, close friends etc were there. I assume we had the usual wedding clothing. I am pretty sure knowing my wife, the dress was fantastic, she worried about it way to much and it would not matter what she had chosen to put on.
I see the wedding ring so I assume it all went well. However I don't know what we ate, I don't know where we got married, I don't remember what was said, the weather, the smells, the cute little things that make every wedding unique. I don't know what group of friends got drunk, did we drink? I don't know if anyone got sick, was there a fight, did I cry, did my wife cry? Was it closed down by the police I don't remember. I don't remember my wedding. I do know I am married.
So imagine how it feels to see pictures of that day I have no recollection of? I recognize my wife, I recognize most of the faces, I recognize scenes as being in Hawaii (well I assume that because I see Hawaii on a lot of things and make an educated guess that the rest of the photos in that group work together). If however, you were to put another picture in there from say, yesterday, at a beach or a restaurant right next door to me in Vancouver. I would assume it had something to do with the wedding.
So you can imagine how much trust I have to have in what I look at is what it is that I am looking at. Why storing these memories in a way to documents the date, the time, the location so I can go back and view them again is so very, very important to me.
You see when you don't remember something, it did not happen. At least you don't think it. That is why you don't put your hand on the stove. You did that once, it hurt, you made a memory, a powerful memory. I don't make those anymore. Thank goodness I had established the stove thing along, long time ago.
However let's say a new device came out or I tried to new learn a new tool or procedure I had never experienced before. I would not retain that data. I would put my hand on the stove again, and again. As I do currently since my injury
So imagine how helpful a device like the ViconRevue is. This literally becomes my memory. At a recent conference I made a speech. Now I don't remember the speech. I again assume it was the same as my other speeches, I don't remember who was there what contacts I made. I don't remember the details. Other than I went to a Brain injury Conference.
However I can now look at my laptop and look at a specific date and I have pictures of that day. I see people I reckognize, I see views that sometimes trigger a memory, but often just make me laugh and feel like I did not loose anything, as I often do. Life is memories. Without remembering what we did......there is no reason to continue to do them.
The Vicon Revue is a small very easy to use camera that takes pictures automatically. It comes with intigrated software that is very simple to use and allows you to put the date, names, locations into the pictures. Check out the video below It uses cutting edge Microsoft software and the whole point is for you to use it on those events that you want to remember.
I have used it twice now "officially" at the Naramata Brain Injury Conference and recently at a Brain Injury Conference close to me in Coquitlam.
If your looking for a way to capture some memories that are not the staged pictures you take your camera for. This is a great place to start. When you use a camera or a phone to take a picture it captures a different "energy" than when you have a time lapsed pictures of the whole event.
I have found myself twice going back to the slide show. It plays like a movie, and putting faces to the names I wrote down in my note book. As I get used to the device I can myself using it more and more.
One nice thing I thought of that would be cool if it could be added would be a way to my Calendar. A way to say go to my outlook calendar and a on that date would be a link to the slide show of the calendar event.
That being said it is a great advice for anyone wanting to capture and return to any event that is important to them.
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